My wife and kids worked out a
spring vacation (and birthday celebration) for the 6 of us, originating from
Chicago and Denver, and staying in a 3 bedroom Airbnb in St Louis, MO. My now-6-year-old granddaughter has her
birthday during this school spring break, and they researched and found lots of
museums/parks/libraries/playgrounds to visit.
My kids take their 2 kids to lots of playgrounds, museums, indoor and
outdoor activity centers to keep them active, moving, and not just sitting
around watching TV. Most of the time,
including our time in St Louis, we walk to nearby parks – there are lots of
parks/playgrounds in Chicago that are walking distance from their apartment,
including the beach at Lake Michigan which is only 2 blocks away from their
home.
The trip from Denver is about 14
hours with charging in my 2021 Model S Plaid – no, didn’t do any launches. FSD was almost flawless and we did the trip
out in 1 day. That estimate using ABRP
and on-board navigation was quite accurate, even accounting for winds. We did alter the planned charging stops so
that we avoided Goodland KS - no food services since Steak-n-Shake closed. Charging was too fast in some cases, we
charged a few minutes more than necessary because of other needs. We charged in Limon, Colby, Russell, Abilene,
Topeka (dinner at Texas Roadhouse across the street), and Columbia MO.
FSD issues:
•
speed limit signs are still not actually
read/interpreted by the car – it still uses [sometimes faulty] GPS/map data
speeds
•
not lowing the max speed when the posted speed
limit drops – yet the on-board speed limit updated properly
•
max speed not maintained unless ‘Hurry’ profile
is selected – and even then I still had to press the accelerator occasionally
•
‘Hurry’ profile sometimes follows to close to
the car in front for my comfort – or doesn’t allow enough clearance when
changing lanes in front of another vehicle
•
hugs the inside lane line of a curve a little
too close for my comfort
FSD positives:
•
honors metering lights at highway on-ramps
•
honors emergency vehicles on the shoulders of
highways by moving over and slowing down
•
honors pedestrians and bicycles on the shoulder
of highways by moving over a bit
In St Louis, we went to 2 places
that had destination charging in the parking lots.
The first parking lot with charging was at City Museum –
pay to park, pay to charge – it was a
Tesla HPWC at $0.27/kWh, charged to my Tesla account.
City Museum is kinda like
Meow-Wolf in that its hands-on and stream-of-consciousness, using materials
(stone, iron, rebar, gargoyles, …) from old buildings. Lots of slides including one that was 5
stories high, spiral stair cases, metal sculptures from old rebar that could be
climbed into/on, … . https://citymuseum.org/
The second parking lot with charging was at MADE for Kids –
free to park, pay to charge – had both Chargepoint J1772 and Tesla HPWC at
$0.50/kWh, again charged to my Tesla account.
Lots of real hands-on activities with hot-glue, sewing
machines, paper rockets launched by compressed air via a hand crank, electric
circuits with a hand-crank generator, 4 lane lego car timed downhill derby
racing, … . https://www.magichouse.org/made-home/
On the way back to Denver, we did
the trip in 2 days in order to spend more time with the family on the last
morning together. The onboard navigation
had us avoiding Limon and going through Kit Carson as it was showing the wrench
icon, and tapping the SC showed ‘reduced service’. At one point it showed units 5A 5B 5C 5D out
of service, then later it showed units 4A 4B 4C 4D out of service. We decided to go to Limon and take our
chances. When we got there, a crew of 2
Tesla Energy folks, one in a Y, one in an ICE van, were doing maintenance. No issues in charging using the working units.
We saw two interesting Teslas in Concordia MO. One was a HW1 light green Model X. The other was a HW1 with a nosecone Model S,
and it had a significant problem that we didn’t realize until a tow truck
showed up. It was facing back toward the
supercharger plug, but too far away to plug in.
The tow truck pushed the S close to the plug, and the driver plugged it
in. My guess is that it ran out of
motive power before it could move close enough to the plug. The 12V must have been OK because the door
handles presented and could be opened, and the car was able to go into
neutral. Pushing the S closer by hand would have been problematic because the
concrete roadway had a slight rise approaching the plug.
-Dan Rosenblatt
April 3, 2025
